


Stars in Your Eyes, Death at Your Throat

by Pinche_Vida



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, BUT I'm a sucker for sequels that result in happy endings, Bittersweet Ending, Dont get me wrong, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Lance (Voltron) Whump, Langst, M/M, Major Character Injury, Major Character Undeath, Moral Ambiguity, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Regret, Romance, Shiro and Allura mean well they really do, Torture, a lot of it, even you, everyone cries, everyone is sad, it starts out nice, klangst, like he dies, then things go 180 real quick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-19 06:51:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13699152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pinche_Vida/pseuds/Pinche_Vida
Summary: His eyes held a galaxy of stars, love was shining through, even with death creeping at his throat.OrNo one knows about Lance and Keith's late night calls, until they're all scrambling to figure out how someone could break into the castle in the middle of the night without leaving a trace.





	1. Chapter 1

To be honest, Lance felt Keith pulling away long before he announced that he would be joining the Blade of Marmora - running off to Marmoran missions instead of training with the team, late night reports to Kolivan, and just being holed up in his room instead of spending the time with them. He felt it coming, but that didn’t stop it from hurting any less. The team, while sad that Keith was becoming a full time Marmoran, were quick to adjust their roles - especially since they had a Black Paladin on standby. It made no sense and the thought of it left such an uncomfortable taste in Lance’s mouth; Keith was their leader and left, and everyone was moving on like it was no big deal. 

What was worrying, was that if they could do that to him, it was more than easy to imagine them doing that to Lance.

He tries to be strong after Keith leaves, he really does, but it's just so _lonely_. Without the common factor of school or classes, Hunk naturally gravitates more often than not to Pidge instead of Lance and works on various projects. Allura and Shiro work on building strategies for the coalition. Neither group particularly needs or wants Lance's input; Coran is amicable enough, but there is only so much Lance can clean.

Shiro calls a training simulation for the team. He walks through different battle behaviors he wants each of the paladins to practice - Hunk needs to focus on his tenacity, Pidge on her drones input commands, Allura on her long distance, and Lance on his melee. Coran inputs the training sentries objective for each paladin above the training room with Shiro watching attentively. Everyone breaks off into the separate sections and gets to work. 

Lance takes a cuff to the chin and lets out a startled shout. Shiro turned on the speech communication from the observation deck and says, “Lance, when facing taller opponents, make sure you stay out of their Danger Zone. You have to either come in behind his throw, or under it in order to cross the firing zone.” Lance wipes the spit off his chin and nods, his eyes never leaving the sentry. 

Most of the time is spent with Shiro throwing the occasional piece of advice towards Pidge and Allura, he offers Hunk soft suggestions for how to strengthen his mental fortitude when handling an enemy. The robot facing Lance grabs his forearm and swings the paladin off his feet and onto the ground. He begins to writhe in pain as the robot applies pressure to his caught arm.

“Lance!” Pidge squawks and drops her control, the three drones she was commanding scatter off in different directions. One hits Hunk square in the face, making him freak out and collide into his practice sentry. Another drone slams into Allura’s back and she shouts out in surprise, falling to the ground in a very undignified manner. The third drone flys straight for the doors. They slide open and Shiro catches it before it has a chance to crash into anything. He walks in short strides with the drone in his human hand before grabbing the sentry on Lance and yanking it up with his Galra hand.

Lance withers under Shiro’s gaze. “End Simulation.” He announces without breaking eye contact. Hunk and Pidge run up to Lance, “Are you okay?” They both frett, scanning his body for any broken bones. He nods, shame closing his throat. 

Allura gets back on her feet and harshly pats dust off herself. She walks up to Lance and looks down at him with a tired, frustrated expression. “Lance,” she began, “This kind of performance is unacceptable. It is one thing to be incompetent in a singular setting, but to have your incompetence affect your teammates could very well cost our lives. Voltron can’t afford that. The universe can’t afford that.” His mouth is dry, and his stomach won’t stop twisting; before he can fumble out an apology, Shiro sighs and places a disarming hand on Allura’s shoulders.

“The Princess is right, Lance. If you’re not helping around the Castle, training should be your top priority.” Shiro looks at him, more disappointed than frustrated, and God does that sting harder.

The red paladin tries to smile, and he hates how he can feel the burn of approaching tears. “Y-yeah, I… I know, I’m sorry, I’ll work harder.” He gets up without the help offered by Hunk’s hand and rushes off to his room with a mantra of ‘Don’t let them see you cry’ ringing in his head.

Lance finds safe haven in his room, clutching on to the communication tablet that was assigned to him at the beginning of their journey. He shuffles to the wall of his bed and idly taps his fingers over the frame while he ponders his next step.

With a deep breath, he unlocks the tablet, dials the access code for the Blade of Marmoa’s line and waits.

Each ring sends more and more chills down his spine, and anxiety begins to eat at his shaking hands.

Just as he’s about to end the call request, the line connects, and Lance feels a bubble of relief burst in his chest. “Hey Mulle-”

“Red Paladin.” The happiness inside him is snuffed out like a match in the rain. The leader of the Blade had answered instead, his large frame and stern face covering the screen. “Is there a situation at the Castle of Lions?” Kolivan shifts attention to something else off-screen, and stretches his hand out to enter some commands into his network, “I’ll send over a team of Marmoan’s within a quarter varga.”

“Wait! No, no, no, Kolivan, it’s chill here, don’t send a squad!” Lance screeches out. His hands are flapping around, trying to emphasize there was no alarm. Kolivan’s pulls his lips to one side of his face, clearly confused.

“Chill? If there is no alarm, why have you reached out? The Princess and Champion are responsible for relaying communications.” He says.

Lance rubs his left shoulder, suddenly feeling a lot more self-conscious. “I know. I, um. I wanted to see if Keith was around? I know he’s probably super busy, but I was just wondering what he was up to... if he had some time to talk, or whatever.”

Kolivan peers into the screen and thins his lips. He studies Lance for a moment before lightly shaking his head. “This access line is reserved for serious matters, and Keith is performing his training vigorously. I hope you understand this enough not to break proper Communication Protocol again unless it is a dire emergency.” The Galran ends their line before Lance can respond, leaving him to stare at a darkened reflection of his pitiful face.

His room suddenly feels so small and suffocating. 

Lance curls into a ball, covers himself with his blanket and cries.

 

The next night, around the same time, Lance is laying down on his side. He skips dinner because the team tends to talk about what they've worked on for the day and Lance can't bear the air of uselessness when silence lingers around the table when everyone is finished speaking and Lance finds he has nothing new to say because he hasn't really done anything.

He rolls on his stomach to bury his face in his pillow and hears something buzzing. The tablet at the foot of his begins to vibrate and Lance leaps to answer it. 

Keith - beautiful, amazing, Keith is on the screen glancing at something off-screen. “Hey, Kolivan mentioned you tried to reach out yesterday.” The half-Galran rolls his eyes playfully, “Are you that bored over there that you're trying to find ways to pest-” His eyes dart around the screen, looking at different parts of Lance’s face, “What the hell, Lance? Are you okay?” He gulps as he sees tears streaming down his friend’s face.

He's never seen him look so sad before.

Lance is hiccuping and furiously trying to wipe the tears away. “It's r-re-really good to hear your voice mullet!” Lance's voice cracks multiple time, but he can't find himself to be embarrassed right now.

Keith is waving his hands around frantically, as if there's some way his hands could go through the screen. “Lance, what's going on? Is everyone okay, what happened?” He asks.

His former right-hand man shifts, his gaze lowers. “Everyone’s good. Nothing’s wrong.” Lance’s voice is low, cautious, and it pisses Keith off.

“Bullshit, you’re crying Lance, stop lying and tell me what’s going on!”

Lance chokes on air and goes into a coughing fit. Keith is looking so intensely, that his purple eyes almost look like their glowing. “I, um… it’s been pretty rough without you here.”

There's a moment of pause as the Blade-initate digests the sentence.

“Uh, what?” Keith shifts his positioning and cocks his head to the side.

Lance meets Keith’s confused stare and continues, “I mean! Our system, you leading Voltron, and me being your right-hand man, it was good! I felt,” He sighs, “I felt useful. Now? I feel like I’m just a body to operate Red.”

Keith chews on his bottom lip.

“I don’t know what you’re going through, or why the team can’t help get you out of thinking like that, but I get how you feel.” Keith says. He scratches the back of his head nervously when Lance’s eyebrows furrow in concern, “The Blade is rough. They eat and work with each other, and have such strong conviction about what they believe; but it's so _intense_ , they’ll fling themselves into the fire and hope their teammates will use their body to get to their goal without a second thought. You can’t really make friends here, because literally everyone is dispensable, and it’s hard.”

“You’re not dispensable.” 

Keith’s eye widen, and his jaw goes slack. Lance is staring him down with red-rimmed eyes. “You’re _not_ dispensable, you know that right?” Lance is gripping his tablet so hard, he swears it's going to crack. “We- we all care about you so much. If there’s ever a moment where you think you are, or you think that you need to be to complete a mission, I want you to remember me telling you this. Promise me, you’ll remember me saying this.”

Keith doesn’t really know what to say, or what to do. No one’s ever really told him that, but hearing it out loud… kinda makes sense. He smiles, “Thanks, Lance, I-” A puff of air leaves his quirked up lips. “I’ll try extra hard not to die if you remember to take your own advice.”

Lance huffs, and closes his eyes as he whips his head to the side. “Whatever. You better,” He says it sternly, but Keith sees his grin. “If I find out you died, I’ll kill you.”

The recent Malmora initiate’s smile is spread out so far, his cheeks are hurting, but he can’t quite stop it. “Oh really? Duly noted.”

Their eyes meet again, and they soon find themselves in a giggling fit.

“Oh!” Lance straightens up, “Did you hear what Pidge did on the scouting mission in Selticon?” Keith shakes his head. “Oh man, so wild, let me tell you. So, Pidge and I are rustling through a Galra-occupied village...”

The two end up talking through the night, sharing stories and making each other laugh. By the time they both realize its time to go, they also realize they don’t want this to end. They promise each other that they’ll schedule some time to this at least once or twice a movement. They end up sneak in video transmissions almost every other night to hear each other's voices and see each other's faces. Neither say it out loud, but it's such a cathartic way to vent their emotions, that they both can't help but look forward to the next call.

It’s really hard to deal with the chaotic mess of an intergalactic war. The fact that death is quite possibly around any corner they take is a little stressful to say the least, but the calls definitely make it easier to bear.

And... if, after every call, they end their night smiling and thinking of the other… well, there can't be much harm in that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Keith joins the Blade of Marmora, Lance feels a little isolated from the group and seeks comfort in late night calls with Keith

Two phoebs into their late night calls, Lance feels better than he has in a long time. True to his word, he has spent a considerable amount of time training and the team’s noticed. As a result, their trainings are a _lot_ smoother. Sparring against Hunk, while once made both Hunk and Lance dread the outcome from it's one-sided stats, was now much more balanced. Sure, he could never be as big as Hunk; but now, Hunk could never be as fast as Lance, and it was pretty exciting to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. When Allura even mentions how impressed she was with his changed behavior in one of their trainings, he rolls it off with an overly confident comment, but the grin he wears lasts the entire session.

Their not the only ones - Keith comments one call about how ‘defined’ Lance’s arms looked. 

“O-oh!” Lance scratches his cheek and wonders if the lighting is dark enough to hide his burning cheeks. “Yeah, you like that?” Lance positions the tablet to stand on his side table and starts flexing in a very showy manner. “Can’t have you coming back to us more jacked than me!”

Keith scoffs, he crosses his arms, visibly embarrassed. “I was just trying to be nice, you dingus!” His cheeks are flushed and it drives Lance up the wall. He laughs and concedes, the image of Keith looking so cautiously open to his words fills his heart with determination and just a pinch of hope.

That movement, Lance clears the next level of training in record time to set his personal best.

 

One quintant, long after the rest of the team has gone to bed, Lance rings Keith’s device. 

“It's so weird, lately it’s like Lotor is always one step ahead of us. We've been getting a lot more stalemates than victories, and the team's really starting to feel it.” Lance is laying on the floor of his room as he eventually always does in his chats with Keith.

“Hmm, has Shiro checked the projection patterns of the time differentials from the Castle’s arrival and Lotor showing up?”

The video feed shakes as Lance clamors up to his bed and flicks a hand toward Keith to emphasize his point, “That's exactly what I've been saying!” He screeches. “I told the gang that we should scramble our coordinates and projected path to see if Lotor would be on top of that!”

Keith pulls his lips to the side, like he tasted space goo for the first time, and presses, “And? What did the team say?”

Lance grimaced and withdrew into his body a bit. “They freaked out! Pidge got super defensive at my suggesting that our network wasn't encrypted enough, and Shiro? Ugh, it was the worst!”

Keith tucks his chin, trying not to show the bristle of defensiveness he feels about Shiro. 

A few moments pass before he asks, carefully, “What are you talking about?”

“Sometimes, I feel like he doesn't respect my input.” Lance clarifies, “I mean, I think it’s gotten better since I’ve upped my training, but it’s like he barely tolerates me. When I try to offer my thoughts or ideas, he just shuts them down! Sometimes he's nice about it, other times he's so brutal, but they always get shut down.”

Keith's face scrunches up. He's never known Shiro to act like that before. Not while the Black Paladin, and definitely not before the Kerberos mission. Shiro's always been so kind and nurturing. He thinks of how Shiro has helped ground Pidge, and guarded her against her own self-destructive habits when searching for her family. How Shiro has become Allura’s confidant, has helped Hunk become more confident in the field. It worries him a bit that the only thing he can remember about Shiro and Lance interacting was when Pidge mentioned that Shiro had praised Lance in his sharpshooting during the Slav mission; outside of that, he can only really recall Shiro reprimanding Lance. 

But Shiro is _Shiro_ , everything he’s done has always been for a good reason.

“He _did_ go missing for a while, Lance.” Keith begins, “He's been through a lot, and he's under a lot of stress, but he's your leader; I'm sure he thinks about what you say seriously before telling you it's not the best option.” Keith explains as cautiously and as thoroughly as he can. He's never been the greatest at people or comfort, but Lance makes him want to try. He'll try if it means Lance is able to feel better.

Lance stares at him with wide eyes. 

Nervousness is creeping into his veins. The moment feels stretched out for far too long.

Then he breaks out into laughter, and it should make Keith relieved, but it doesn't. The chirps of laughter aren't light and airy; their harsh and bitter, and makes him feel like he did something wrong. 

“You're probably right, Samurai!” He says with a little too much pep. Lance waves one of his hands, trying to get rid of his previous words. “I forget sometimes not to get ahead of myself. I'm sure Shiro knows what he's doing, he doesn't need some stupid kid from Cuba’s opinion.”

Keith gut twists in a slow, nasty way. “What?” He asks. Did Lance not get what he was trying to say? Did he say it wrong? “No, Lance, I didn-”

Lance shoot off a finger gun and winks at Keith, “Gotta go catch up on my beauty sleep, Mullet, talk to you later!” Usually, a goofy action like that makes Keith roll his eyes and shake his head, but all he can feel is a heaviness setting itself in his stomach. Lance quickly cuts off the communication line, leaving Keith feeling like something happened, something big. He placed his device at the foot of his bed and lies down. For the first time since they started all of this, his call with Lance has ended terribly and as much as he wants to call him back immediately, Keith knows that Lance would reject the call immediately. 

He goes to bed, hesitant and confused, but hopes that they can talk it out later.

 

Turns out it's hard to ‘talk something out’ when the other person wants nothing to do with you. Keith waits for a few (miserable) quintants for Lance to reach out, before realizing that he wasn't going to call. In between missions and training, Keith desperately tries to reach out to Lance, but is met with no response.

They don’t talk for at least half a pheob, and while he was aware of how much he enjoyed the calls, Keith doesn’t realize how much he needed them. Kolivan snaps at him one day after he almost loses the data they were sent to retrieve from an undercover Blade spy.

“Head back to your quarters.” He curtly orders Keith after a mission. “I would suggest you make peace with your partner before your actions cost your life.”

“Whu, what?” Keith squwaks, “Lance is _not_ my 'partner'!”

Unimpressed, Kolivan reaches for a pamphlet on his desk and begins to read it. “I am running a resistance organization, Blade.” He says as if explaining it to a new recruit. “I do not have the time to play therapist; Sort out your grievances and come back when you’re ready.” He waves Keith away, which was as much as a dismissal as Keith would receive today.

When he reaches his quarters, he threw himself on the bed. Keith grabbed his pillow and clings to it. Lance was so frustrating! He was _trying_ to make him feel better. Keith knows he’s never been good with people, he knows everyone else knows, but he was trying damn it! Even after he realized that what he said was stupid, Lance isn’t even giving him to chance to say sorry! 

The sound of ringing flutters through the room and he pauses his train of thought.

The tablet.

He’s receiving a video transmission request.

Keith knows who it is, but cautiously checks anyway. It’s a video transmission request from Lance's device and he leaps to it. Leaps to his chance to apologize, to explain that his being defensive towards Shiro was wrong, and Shiro was wrong, and he should have never made Lance feel anything less than what he is; which is awesome, clever, funny, swee-

His breath hitches in his throat.

It's not Lance.

It's Pidge. She stares at him, almost like she wasn’t really expecting him to pick up.

She opens her mouth to speak, but her lip trembles and all that escapes is a pitiful whimper. Heavy dread beings to close his throat and before he can ask anything, she's crying. Pidge is _crying._ Keith can't breathe. Why is Pidge calling from Lance's device? Why is she crying? “Where's Lance?” He feels himself whisper. “Pidge” He says louder, which makes her still and look up into his eyes. She calms herself down enough to explain.

They had their scheduled meeting to discuss the talking points for the next cycle of planets but Lance hadn't shown up. Allura was annoyed at him sleeping in again, or spending more than a few minutes on his morning skincare routine. Hunk had offered to wake his friend up and just a few moments later, they heard his scream echo throughout the corridor.

They all ran to Lance's room and saw the blood. So much blood. His room was torn apart and blood was on the floor, the wall, the dresser. The smell of copper was thick in the air, and an underlying question of how could this all happen without them hearing a thing lingered.

Hunk hiccuped, slapping his hand to his mouth and ran to Lance’s bathroom to throw up.

Coran held Allura as she covered her mouth in horror. “I, I don’t understand…” She uttered, tears quickly pricking her eyes, threatening to fall.

Pidge stood, pale and unmoving. Her stomach was caving in on itself, and her mind was reeling. Losing Matt and her Dad hurt so much, but in the end, she was a kid with no control over the mission. She had put her everything into finding out what happened afterward and joining the Garrison to help the only way she knew how. She’s a _Paladin_ of _Voltron_ now, but it meant nothing because, in the end, she’s lost another person in her life, another brother, right from under her nose. She begins to scanning the entire room, as unbiased as her thrumming heart would let her, because she can't comprehend what just happened, how it happened, when did it happen, why is it only in the room and not in the halls, how they’re just finding this out, wher-

Shiro hit the wall with his metal hand, snapping everyone's attention to him. He looked angry, he looked frustrated. He rolled his shoulders back and started barking orders to gather information, “We don't have time to spare. _Lance_ doesn't have time to spare, we need to see how long ago this happened, how far he is and get. him. back.”

Everyone jumped into action - performing perimeter searches in nearby quadrants, checking security logs, viewing security camera, and scanning the hull for any breaches; But there was no information to go off of. Security logs were clean. Video footage was quiet all night. Hull integrity was at 100%

They were stumped and each quintant, each _varga_ that passed was more time against them.

__Over the course of a three quintants, Pidge took a closer look at the data they collected. It turns out that the Security logs were wiped, video footage was looped, and the hull- well that part was true._ _

__So, either the castle was infiltrated by an extremely skilled agent, or… no. No, the castle had to have been infiltrated._ _

__Pidge was combing through transmissions in and out for the last few phoebs and saw Keith and Lance's call logs. She thought more than him maybe getting the Blade to help, that he deserved to know._ _

__“We’re gonna find him, Keith. I’m gonna find him, and Matt,” She chokes up a bit, “and my dad. I’m gonna find them all.”_ _

__He nods softly, “I know, Pidge.” Any other time it would sound condescending, he thinks, but Pidge gets it. She thins her lips and nods back before ending the call._ _

__Keith doesn't realize until the screen goes black, and he sees his darkened reflection, how wet his cheeks were. Rubbing the tears from his face, he sniffs, clutches his communication device to his chest, and wonders why the universe would do this to Lance?_ _

__That’s a lie. He knows why._ _

__It's because Lance got too close. Everyone that gets close, gets hurt. His parents, his foster parents, Shiro, and now Lance. He tried to push Lance away by joining the Blade of Marmora, but got too greedy, too selfish. He couldn't stay away from Lance, he became addicted to their late night calls and cherished moments of laughter and vulnerability._ _

__Now Lance is paying for it._ _

__He leaves for the castle that night with nothing more than a sloppy handwritten note for Kolivan on his bed._ _


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During one of their calls, Keith unwittingly adds to Lance's insecurities but finds that Lance has been taken before he's can say sorry.

The first thing Lance notices when he drifts back into consciousness is how cold it is. He shivers against a chilled metal chair. The room he’s in has such a strong, sterile white light, pointed at him making it that much harder to keeps eyes open. Squinting until his eyes adjust, he finds himself shackled to the chair in nothing but his underwear. Apart from the chair he’s in, there what looks like a surgeon’s table with different interrogation tools whose purpose he can only imagine. The room is empty and devoid of sound, making it pretty easy to hear the blood rushing in his ears and the drumming of his heart. 

He does a quick check of his senses and body. Almost everything seems right, but there's a faint line going across his stomach that he can't recall ever having. Something like that must have taken a while to heal that well and he just realized that in a room with no windows, he has no way to tell how much time has exactly passed, or how many times this was his ‘first time’ waking up.

The door in front of him swings opens and Druids come flooding in. Chattering and scribbling notes down, and poking and prodding him. He yelps and snaps at them to get away, though it's hard to give a command half-naked and tied up. A commanding voice cuts through all the noise and they quickly part down the middle.

Prince Lotor, flowing silver hair and all, strides through the parted Druids and stops in front of his chair to marvel at Lance's body. “How resilient.” He murmurs, slowly walking around him. Lance tugs at the bindings and thinks about how he would love to break that pretty little nose. 

“I have never seen a species react so well to Galra medicine, and trust me, the Druids have had _quite_ a bit to work with.” He traces his finger along the line on Lance's stomach, leaning in to Lances face. Lance sneers and spits on his face, a glob of saliva finds itself easily on the Prince’s cheek. Lotor is pretty unfazed, not moving an inch to rid the spit slowly rolling down his cheek. No, he smiles, still caressing the Red Paladin’s torso and quickly uses his clawed hands to pierce Lance's stomach. Lance screams, feeling each individual claw worm and embed themselves deep in his body. Blood gushes out of the wound when Lotor brings his bloodied hand out to wipe the spit on his cheek. Galran eyes are locked on to Lance’s panicked face, and he takes a slow step back before moving to lick his hand. Lance’s lips tremble as he tries his hardest to keep a stiff upper lip, but he feels the build up grow in his mouth and roughly coughs out blood. It sprays over his legs and the floor in front of him. Lotor lets out a light _‘Hmm’_ and turns swiftly to leave with both his hands neatly tucks behind his back.

The pain is so sharp, so _real_. It reduces the paladin to short cries and moans - each groan contracting his stomach, and each contraction grinding against torn flesh and seeping blood. The moment the doors close behind Lotor, the druids jump to life and dive at the chance to test on the marvelous subject they’ve heard so much about.

Lance is brought in and out of consciousness multiple times over the course of a time he can't really count. It usually consists of questioning, followed by torture from lack of answers, wrapped up with a round of Druid experiments before patching him back up. A guard comes in at uneven intervals to inject him with a purple bubbly vial that supplements him with nutrients needed to prevent starvation. There are instances when he wakes up and there is no one around. He savors those moments to cry in pain and from loneliness before steeling his resolve as best he can to deliver witty retorts to what is sure to be the next round of torture.

Reflecting one quintet, he thinks back to how he got here.

How he woke up feeling like something was terribly off, just a moment before his door was forced open. He had seen one of the Galra generals on Lotor’s team, the one with short purple hair, pry the door open with her claws and go straight for his bed. Lance had clamored away with barely any time and saw her claw into his sheets, turning the fabric into ribbons. She whipped around with a frighteningly fierce look and smashed her elbow into his nose, no doubt smirking as his bone crunched and blood flowed freely down his lip. He stumbled back and wiped the blood off with one hand while cuffing her in the throat with the other, just like the guardian bots had done to his face during his many training sessions. She choked out a garbled growl, and grabbed the front of his shirt. Spinning him around twice to gain momentum, she threw him the wall, blood following in dripping streams as his back thudded and he crumpled in a crouched position to the ground. 

Lance pushed himself off the wall and kneed her in the stomach as she lunged to grab his throat. The general coughed and grabbed his shirt, slamming him to the dresser. His head hit the corner of it and more blood started to spill, this time from his split scalp. He coughed and tried to grip the dresser, but fell to the floor when the general kicked the back of his knee. As quick as he could, he got back up and tackled her to the ground. He clamored on top of her and wrapped his arm around her neck and _squeezed_. She wrestled in his grip, clawed at his arms, and he felt himself getting dizzier and dizzier, but he refused to lose consciousness before she did. With any luck, he would have enough time to spare and set the alarm that should have gone off the moment she breached the castle. He heard the door swish open, and sighed in relief as the general in his choke hold was starting to give in.

“Hunk,” He moaned, solace bringing him close to tears. “Hur-” 

It wasn't Hunk, or anyone of his teammates, but _another_ general at the threshold. The big one. She stomped over to him and pulled the black haired one who had almost passed out at this point from his arms. He weakly tried to pull the smaller general back in his hold when the big one reeled her arm back and punched Lance in the head - effectively knocking him out.

By the time he came to, there was no way to tell how long it had been since he had been attacked or where the quiznak he was in the galaxy.

He knows that his training allowed him to last as long as he did, but there was still a nagging ‘what if’ that made him wonder what he could have done to last a little longer, be a little faster.

Be a little better.

Fruitlessly, he tugs at the binds. ‘Surprise, surprise,’ he thinks, tugging until the skin on his wrist is sore and chafed. Lance sighs and closes his eyes, focusing on the noise he makes while tapping his foot - not that he’d wish this on anyone, but man, what he would give for a prison mate. 

The loneliness and emptiness are going to make him go mad _long_ before the torture does.

Where was his team? Where was his lion? Either one of them? He had expected Red and had hoped Blue would come to the rescue or at least roar out and alert the others, but there was nothing. He wanted the believe the team was searching for him. That they were fighting to get information which would lead them here. That they at least had noticed he was gone and were horrified to see the state of his room. 

More than his team, his thoughts drift to the half-Galran he had gotten so close to over the last few mont- ah, phoebs. He wonders if the team told him, or if he got bored of Lance rejecting all of his calls and re-focused back on his training. The thought of that hurt much more than his stomach being torn open, or his arm being spliced open for the Druids to examine his biceps. He wishes he wasn’t so sensitive, that Keith agreeing with Shiro thinking Lance is useless didn’t bother him. If he got out of here, he’d do better - he would work twice as hard to make everyone see how much he cared about being a Paladin, how much he cared about being a part of the team. He would tell Keith how he felt, he would promise to do anything he could to make sure he re-joined the team. Fresh tears spilled as he imagined the blush that would spread across Keith’s pale, _gorgeous_ , face as he says “I love you”. He'd thrive in the flustered sputtering that would inevitably begin and how his purple eyes would dart around to look around for the words he would try to respond with-

Steps outside the door break his daydream. Lance uses his shoulders to wipe his face and hushes his sniffling as Haggar walks in. He puffs his chest out, quirks an eyebrow, and goads her, “What’s shaking, Hag? Still got some energy in those wrinkly bones of yours to waste on my mind?” My schedule’s a little packed, but I think I can squeeze you in before my Three O’Clock vivisection.”

“Cute”, the hunched over witch sneers and creeps over to his chair. “I understand that your connection to your lion shields you from our mental influences, but do not fool yourself, Paladin.” She trails off in a rasp. A flick of her wrist sends the other Druids into motion and they swarm Lance to unchain him from his chair and move to strap him to the table against one of the walls. She walks slowly over to his new spot using calculated, intimidating steps.

“I had hoped to reserve the physical exertions for Prince Lotor,” Haggar sighed, lining her Druids to form a circle around the table. Lance’s eyes darts around the room. Seven masked Druids encircle him with Haggar at the head of his table. She leans over and curls her lips to a smile when she sees him flinch as her hair touches his face.

“That does _not_ mean I am beneath the use of such methods.” She continues. Lifting a hand up from her robes, she sends an arc of dark magic up to the ceiling. Lance can’t help the fear seeping in his bones - he remembers Allura’s recounting her battle with the witch. He sees the scorch mark that’s left on the ceiling from her blast of magic. “When I am done, you will be begging for the Prince to come back in.” He definitely doesn’t doubt her words, but grins none the less.

Even if it’s fake, as long as Lance smiles, it will be okay. He just needs to hold out long enough for someone to find him.

“Show me what you got, _bruja de mierda. _”__

__Her bony fingers spread out over the Cuban’s head and chest, with her faithful Druids following suit. Their hands are gathering quintessence. Slowly, a purple, static like energy grows in their palms. A lick of the magic zaps his leg, and Lance shivers but clenches his jaw. No matter what they do to him, he'll never give his team up._ _

__He'll die before that happens._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank you all for leaving kudos, comments, and bookmarking this! I'm worried I can't respond without dishing the juicy chisme >.<
> 
> It's my first fic in a while and it feels good to get back into the swing of things! I'm hoping to complete this before season 5 premiers so stay tuned my dudes


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the previous chapters, Lance is tortured and reflects on how he was taken.

When Keith comes back, he quickly sees what Lance was talking about when it came to Shiro.

In the three movements since he's been back, things feel… rough. Tense. The entire team is on edge after no clues or leads to go off of. They have done dozens of scouting and recon missions, but nothing is substantial enough for them to figure out who took Lance, or where. The Blade has sent out a wide notice to their members to be on the look out for information or chatter focusing on the quadrant they were in when Lance was taken, but so far, they’ve shown up empty.

The team is collapsing inward - even Keith can see that, but it's hard to do what Lance seemed to do as naturally as breathing. Lance would always grab Pidge and take them away from their laptop after 16 straight hours of combing through prison records from their latest Galra data dump. He would help Hunk in the kitchen when his friend’s nerves seemed to shake towards another anxiety episode after a rough battle and they would sing all their troubles away with cheesy musicals. He would offer to watch over the radar while Allura took a nap, or went to refresh herself with a shower. He'd help Coran with repairs and spend hours enthralled by the older Altean's stories of the good ol’ days. Hell, he even swung by the training room when Keith was there and offered company via joining in on his sessions; Lance almost always lost, but he always made it so that they ended the sessions laughing and ready to devour one of Hunk's creations.

Shiro doesn't do any of those things - not that he ever did, or is supposed to. He’s trying to lead, and the others are trying to follow, but with Lance missing, there is no balance. The Castle is quieter. The missions are more drawn out, and tire everyone out quicker.

Keith would like to think that Shiro is being hard on himself because he wasn't able to stop Lance from being taken, and is projecting those emotions.

But it's hard not to get frustrated with his… lack of fluidity. It's very ‘his way’ or you’re ‘ _in_ his way’. He would also like say that Shiro isn’t listening to anyone’s input, but that’s not really true. Pidge and Hunk were never really big on providing input unless it was to provide data or suggest turning back. Allura can still definitely sway Shiro on how to approach an operation, and has on several occasions.

So, in all actuality, it’s more that Shiro isn’t listen to Keith’s input anymore.

“I think I should go on the Marmoran scouting missions.” Keith says in one of their debriefing sessions.

Allura, with tired eyes and furrowed brows, instinctively raises a cautious hand. “Are you sure about that, Keith? We are a bit stretched out as it is.”

Before Keith has a chance to respond, Shiro sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose with his human hand.

“No, Keith.” He says, sounding exhausted. “That's such a reckless decision. Anything could happen in those missions, it's too dangerous.”

“But I've done them dozens of times,” Keith persists, “I know all the protocols from when I was training with them.”

“That was when Lance took your place as the red paladin and I came back for Black. If something happens and you go missing too, there's no way to form Voltron, and then we have an even bigger uphill battle. We can't put the universe in that position.”

Keith scoffs, then narrows his eyes, “But we can leave Lance in that position. Who knows what kind of person would attack Lance in his sleep and take him from under our noses could be doing to him right now?”

Shiro clicks his tongue. “Keith, you’re being childish.” He hisses, low and stern. “I care about finding Lance, just as much as you do, we all do. We _all_ care about him. But-”

“But it’s okay to risk not taking missions that could tell us where he is?” Keith finishes. His index finger is tapping furiously against his hip. “If you ‘care’ so much, then why did it take Pidge reaching out for me to find out about his disappearance? Why make Lance feel like trash the weeks before he disappeared?”

“ _Stop._ ” Shiro bristles. His shoulders are tensing up and his eyes are shifting to a dangerous glare.

Keith doesn’t listen to the plea/demand. “Why act like a dick to Lance-”

Shiro grabs Keith's shirt with his Galra hand, and he can see the glint of fury in his leader’s eyes when Shiro pulls back his fist. Keith curls his lip into a sneer and mirrors his brother's actions. Allura and Hunk gasp, and Pidge bites her lip with her grip on the table tightening. All of them stare with wide eyes. Coran quickly wedges himself between them and sternly says, “Enough.” They snap their attention at Coran then back to each other, the wild look in both of their eyes fading.

Their hands fall limp to let go of each other, and both take a step back as if to step away from the toxic argument.

“K-Keith,” Shiro stutters, looking devastated at the loss of his self-control. “I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-”

He nods and looks down, feeling guilty at goading his leader (his _family_ ) when he knows Shiro is doing the best he can. “I know… I'm sorry too.” Not waiting for a response, he walks out of the room and begins to wander around the castle.

\--

Keith passes room after room aimlessly, each one holding a fragment of a memory with the team. Cheesy old Altean movies in the lounge, bonding exercises in the training room, unwinding from a hard fought victory in the swimming pool. Everyone here had wormed their way into the crevices of his heart, and all he wanted to do was make sure that they all survived a war they were thrown into.

There’s a small sound that his ears pickup on. He looks up and sees that he’s found himself in front of Lance’s room. Cautiously, he walks up to it and opens the doors up.

Hunk’s already there, clinging onto Lance’s bedsheets - which even after three washes, are permastained with his blood. The half-Galra feels sick to his stomach looking at the Yellow Paladin crying.

It feels like he’s intruding on something intimate. Every part of Keith wants to leave. He doesn't really know how people ‘work’, that was more Lance's specialty...but he's not here, and he was- is Lance's best friend.

So, he sits next to Hunk.

Hunk sniffles, rubbing his eyes, just now noticing Keith.

“You know, um,” he sniffs again, “the team was pretty on edge for the last couple of months. Lotor was out maneuvering us left and right. He tried to keep our spirits up, but… more often than not Lance became the go to punching bag for the others to let out their frustration. He used to just hole himself in his room playing Killbot Phantasm 1, but after getting tore a new one by Allura and Shiro in a training session, he put pretty much all of his time into training. Pfft, it was almost like have you back, you know?” Keith thinks back to when he complemented Lance’s arms and thinks about the pain that must have motivated his workouts. “I noticed Lance becoming more withdrawn, less like himself. I tried to talk to Lance about it, I did! But Lance just smiled and said he ‘came from a big family, it's nothing he's not used to’ and he ‘knows what the others were saying in anger didn't mean much.’ And then, a few days after that, Lance became way more perky, chipper even.” 

Hunk rubs the back of his head. He turns to Keith and shyly meets his stare. “Pidge mentioned the transmission logs.” Keith froze, not sure how to take Hunk bringing it up. Hunk smiled sadly, “I calculated the numbers, I do that when I’m anxious. That and bake. The start of your calls and Lance's attitude change went hand in hand.” Hunk begins to tear up again. Suddenly, he hugs Keith. “Thank you, thank you so much for being there when I was too dense to, when I was too scared to. Thanks for being a better friend to Lance than I was when he needed it most.”

There’s a weird churn in his stomach. It’s a bittersweet happy laced with guilt he’s not sure will ever go away. He gently hugs Hunk back. “I don't feel like I was being a better friend than you, Hunk. I don’t know if that’s possible.” And he truly thinks that. But, but a small part of him wants to think that their transmissions were more than that. That each late night laugh, and soft sigh meant as much to Lance as it did to him. Hunk shakes his head. 

“I saw Lance change,” Hunk insists, “I saw that pep in his step, dude. I know, just _know_ it was because of you, man.”

Keith’s lip starts to tremble. He breaks down and confesses the guilt that's been eating at his insides. That in their last call a few movements ago, Lance tried confiding in him about how Shiro had been treating him. And that Keith brushed it off the way everyone else had. He mentions the look on Lance's face when Lance thinks that Keith agrees with Shiro. He finds himself crying as he explains that the last time he spoke with Lance, he feels like he destroyed Lance's trust, and that he would face a million Zarkons with nothing but a stick if it meant he could take it all back

Hunk hugs Keith harder and they cry into each other's arms over the things they regret. But once the tears have dried out, they stand up. Tears won't help Lance, resolve will. So, like Pidge’s promise to him, they promise each other that they'll be able to see Lance again, and make the best imitation _pernil_ that space can offer.

Two quintants later, a phoeb after Lance's disappearance, Pidge sounds the alarm and tells everyone to head her way through the ship comms.

Everyone comes rushing in to the control room where she’s cheering in her seat.

“Have you found him? Have you found Lance?” Allura asks with hands wrung so tight her knuckles have turned white.

Pidge’s smile falters for a tick. “No,” she corrects. “No, I haven't, but!” She leaps up from her chair and swivels her monitor to the team. “I found this!” The team crowds around her screen and tries to decipher what's in front of them.

“A script?” Hunk guesses.

“Yes!” She jumps up in place, excited with the correct answer. “Or rather, the traces of a script used in our mainframe!” She turned the monitor back to her side and rapidly types on the keyboard. “I still can't figure out how they were able to bypass our security before boarding” Pidge looks up and does a quick scan of everyone's face while saying this. She’s both relieved and disappointed not finding a reaction worth noting, and continues, “But when they left, the program left a marker kind of like a footprint on the back end. I ran a scan for any similar findings in the Blade database, and I found a match!”

She flicks her hand on the screen up and shares the image on their main holoprojector.

“That signature… we've come into contact with it before.” Allura says. She covers her mouth with a gasp once she makes the connection, “It's Lotor's ship.”

Pidge nods with her mouth thinned to a line.

Coran steps up and clenches his fist. “Lotor's got our boy.”

Shiro rolls his shoulder and walks up to the screen, “Not for long. Team, we’ve got a ship to track.”

The team nods as they look at each other - a righteous fury strumming in their hearts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really trying to get these chapters out so that I can finish up before Season 5 this Friday! Hopefully that amps you guys up for the next couple of days and hopefully my twist to wrap this story up is well received :0 
> 
> Again, your comments on here and notes on tumblr really do motivate and make me happy! I really hope you guys enjoy the rest of this wacky ride!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the previous chapter, Keith confronts Shiro and comforts Hunk upon his return to the Castle.

The world is as disorienting as it has been the last few dozen times he has come to when Lance wakes up in a cold sweat. His muscles tense against the-

Sheets?

He moves the sheets that are comfortably draped over with his (free!) arm and recognizes that for the first time since this hellish turn of events, he's laying down in something reminiscent of a bed instead of strapped to a cold examiner's table.

Something (someone?) tuts and kneels beside his bed to wipe the sweat off his forehead. Lance opens his eyes and his vision is swimming. He forces it to focus on the person next to him.

Blurry blue lines fall into focus. 

It's the general that attacked him.

There’s so much anger, so much fear coursing through his veins, Lance can’t tell if his blood is boiling or freezing. This _monster_ attacked him in his sleep, kidnapped him, took him away from his family. They're the reason why he's been tortured for God knows how long.

The general rolls her eyes and grumbles “This is such glorp, why did _I_ get stuck kit watching.” She tries not to complain out loud too much. Lotor had trusted her to keep an eye on his Altean prisoner - why Lotor had said it had to be done in one of his guest quarters was beyond her, but if he instructed her to do something, it _had_ to have been for a good reason. She glances at Lance who's seething and she can see the bloodlust in his eyes. Unimpressed, she lightly press his shoulders to the bed. “Calm your little heart, Altean. You're safe.” She leaned back in her chair before adding, “for now, anyway.”

Lance's anger is far from gone, but the way she said that so factually is… confusing to say the least. “What are you talking about? I'm not Altean, I'm human!”

“Right," she mocks with a slow nod, "and my mother was a Balmeran.” She rolls her eyes, reaches blindly backwards, and grabs a hand mirror from a dresser behind her. She hands it to Lance who warily takes it to looks at his reflection.

He gasps. His fingers shake their way to his cheekbones, both marked with a swooping teal scale. They inch to his ears, now elongated and pointed, then to his hair (while still flawless) is completely silver. He finds himself staring into his eyes, which are still his beautiful ocean blue, but now have a lavender diamond shaped outline around his pupil.

He looks like Allura.

He looks Altean.

Even the most plausible reasoning he can think of leaves him sick to his stomach. Lance feels like his heart is beating so fast, it's going to shatter through his chest. He throws the mirror across the room as if it burned his hand and it bounces to the floor with a resounding _crack_.

The general uncrosses her legs and raises an eyebrow. Whatever reaction she had expected, this clearly was not it. “H-hey,” she half-heartedly reaches out to him. 

Lance pays no mind to her actions. Instead, he curls in on himself. He grabs fists full of his hair and tugs on it. “What- What did you do to me?” He repeats it, over and over again, _“What did you do to me!”_ He screams. He tries to pull on his hair and his ears. He scratches at the marks on his cheekbones, hoping, _praying_ it'll come off as a sick joke. It does nothing but send sharp, shooting pain across his face, but maybe he's not trying hard enough. Maybe if he sucks up the pain, he can scratch it off and look human again. _Be_ Human again.

“What are you- are you crazy?!” The general leaps across his bed and grabs his wrists. Lance screeches for her to get off and feels terror creeping in his bones. He thinks of his mama y papa. His hermanitos, all waiting for him to come back safe and sound. He always knew how to explain a scar or even a missing limb, it's war, that's what happens in war. But this? He's not human anymore, he doesn't belong anymore. To the one place he's called home, to his family, to Voltron, to anywhere.

The tall pink general appears from the upper corner of the wall and rushes to crawl down next to him. “I got the straps Axca! It's okay little guy, it's gonna be alright!” She tries to soothe him as she restrains him, which Lance thinks would be hilarious if they hadn't just taken _everything_ away from him.

Lance feels his wrists locks down to both sides of the bed, but still tries in vain to wrestle out of them. A few more attempts and he's reduced to erratic panting.

Axca sits back down in her seat to the right of Lance, where as the pink general has pulled up a seat to the left of him. “You could have come in a bit sooner, Ezor.”

The pink general, Ezor, sheepishly smiles, “Sorry! I thought you had it under control.”

His body is heavy with weariness and denial. Lance takes this moment to try to calm his breath and look around. While the two generals are watching him closely, he sees that the room he's in is more of a bedroom then a surgeon’s room or an interrogation area. It's painted and furnished with dark red and brown accents. Colors he frankly wasn't aware the Galra were knew existed outside of bodily fluids. The bed he's in is comfortable, plush, even. The bedroom is a decent size, it would be easy to fit in 7, maybe 8 people.

Axca clears her throat. He glares at her and see how uncomfortable she is, her eyes darting around the room. “For what it's worth, I… I’m sorry for attacking you as you slept. Prince Lotor wouldn't have sanctioned such a dishonorable or reckless abduction, but the mission came from above him.” If she thinks he’s acknowledging her half-ass apology, she was sorely mistaken. He didn't know what she expected from him; A smile? A 'no probs, I hated being human anyway, this is _so_ much better’?

Ezor puts a hand on his bed and pats it softly, causing him to direct his attention her way. “Don't worry, buddy. If anyone can figure out what's going on, it's Prince Lotor!”

Axca hissed Ezor’s name out and gave her a pointed look.

The doors swish open and bring both generals to their feet.

Prince Lotor enters with his hand neatly tucked behind his back and stopping at the foot of Lance's bed.

“Hello Paladin, how are you feeling?”

Lance stares at the Galran Prince. “Are you serious?" He scoffs. "You kidnap me, torture me, shove your fucking hand in my gut, turn me into an Altean, and you ask me how I'm feeling? Go quiznak yourself!”

Axca visibly bristles and seethes out “How dare you speak t-”. Lotor places a disarming hand on her shoulder.

“Now, now, Axca.” He shakes his head as if teaching her how to care for a child, “Almost everything he said is true, he has a right to be upset.” Lotor turns back to Lance, “But I did not 'turn’ you into anything. You were and have always been an Altean. Judging by your hair and eyes, I would say probably more than that.”

“Bullshit,” Lance spits out, “Altean’s haven't existed in 10,000 years.”

Lotor leans his head to the side, contemplating his words. “Not… quite. While Altea was certainly destroyed approximately 10,000 deca-phebes ago, not all Altean's were lost. There were Altean's living outside of Altea, there were Altean's in orbit around the Galaxy. Our Druids are almost exclusively Altean. I, myself, am half Altean. Even your dear Princess managed to live.” Lotor sits at the base of Lance's bed, slowly removing the straps his generals fastened. “Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury to piece together how you came to be, where you spent most of your time, or how you didn't age. We cannot keep you here for long. In healing and studying your body, your human camouflage fell, revealing your Altean nature. Once the Druids saw you, they refused to touch you any further. Word of this inevitably reached the Witch and when she saw you with her own eyes she ran to inform my father. Unsurprisingly, she left his chamber's shortly after, arriving with the decree for your execution.”

Lance felt his heart skip a beat. “Whu… what? Execution? You just said that Alteans are still around! Why does that mean I get executed?”

“It’s to be expected.” Lotor simply states. “The Galra empire still harbor animosity to the Altean's Kingdom for ordering the destruction of Daibazaal. If we had Princess Allura in our possession, the order would be the same.”

After all the pain and suffering he’s felt over since being taken, Lance is ashamed to feel tears prick the corners of his eyes, “But I'm not Princess Allura!”

Sentry drones enter the room and Lance sees all three half-Galrans tense up. 

“The High Priestess demands the prisoner is brought to his holding cell.” One of the drones vocalizes.

The sentries approach his bed and Lotor stands up. “No,” he concedes, “but you are Royalty.” They make their way to the door and leave with a final message. “Believe it or not, My father and I have different ideas, I'll do what I can for you. From one prince to another.” He pauses, at the door’s threshold. “I would not be surprised if your team is able to access our communication channel for the event - you may wish to use that time to make your peace.”

The sentries roughly grab Lance out of the bed and drag him to the hall in the opposite direction of the Prince.

They throw him into a small cell in what must be their holding cells and slam the door behind him. The floor is cold and damp, but Lance can’t bring himself to stand or even sit. So many thoughts were bombarding his mind, that it all just felt like a storm was pushing and pulling him in every direction. 

Lance has always prided himself in having good judge of character and being able to read people - it’s what allowed him to be as social as he was.

And as much as he wanted to deny it, or chalk it up to some crazy Galra experiment, he could tell Lotor wasn’t lying.

Altean _and_ a Prince.

Even he can put two and two together.

If he wasn’t about to die, he’d be more than a little grossed out with how much he hit on his (older? younger?) sister, but that’s probably the wrong thing to focus on right now.

There’s also no real point to wonder why the same guy that spent the last whatever pheobs torturing him would even bother being so nice to him all of a sudden, even though it’s clear what his brief appearance meant. Lotor didn’t specify when the execution was, but if he went so far out of his way to get Lance that comfy room, it must be right around the corner. Lance crawls to the bench/bed of the left side of the room and uses it to pull himself up. 

He sighs.

His hope has just about depleted, but there’s no time to resign to it. If they’re going to make a show of his death, he need to prepare himself.

The bench is bumpy, hard and unforgiving, and exactly what he needs to focus. Lance thinks back to when Allura shapeshifted to look like a Galra. He doubts he could get that good in such a short amount of time, but at the very least…

He grabs a lock of silver hair dangling over the end of his brow. He focuses (on what, he’s not exactly sure), until there is the tiniest sensation tugging up his spine to the base of his neck. Pushing, harder to channel that feeling, he smiles - a genuine smile, when he sees the bit of hair wash over in the comforting brown hue he’s used to seeing.

It wasn’t a lot, but in times like these, any victory is a good victory.

Lance sighs, and nods to himself.

They can kill him all they’d like, he’s going to make sure he can’t die.

(Oh. That's a good line, he's definitely going to use that.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's it is! The chapter I've been struggling with since I started writing this fic a month ago. I'm a sucker for Altean Lance, but was pulling my hair out (lol) trying to decide if I should go down this route.
> 
> Ultimately, I've made peace with it, and hope it's good enough for you lovely peeps.
> 
> Only 3 more days till Season 5! :U


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the previous chapter, Lance wakes up in a comfy bed with his abductor and is (rather bluntly) told he is not who he thinks he is

Three movements pass after Pidge discovered Lotor's ship's signature in the castle. Since then, they have worked in tandem with the Blade of Marmora to retrieve information wherever they could, however they could. 

Every time they had a lead, they felt so close. The team would get their hopes up, could see Lance being back in their arms. 

Then _something_ would happen. 

A trap, false information, outdated information; A sudden battle against squadrons of Galra fighters that stood between them and Lotor’s ship, fighting tooth and nail, only to have them watch as the ship jumped to another portion of the Galaxy.

The Blade of Marmora informs the team that there is an insane amount of chatter coming from their network about an important captive. They say that an announcement is scheduled in 2 quintets on one of the planets closest to the Central Command Ship. 

“How sure are we that this isn’t another trap or bad intel?” Hunk asks wearily. 

“The information has been pulled in from at least 40 various sources in our network - if it is malformed information, it means that the Blade itself has been compromised.” Kolivan assures the team, “We will be planting several agents across the region where the chatter was heaviest on the planet. If possible, their orders are to extract the Red Paladin, assuming he is the captive.”

Without hesitation, Keith steps up to volunteer for the mission. 

“Wait, Keith, we shou-” Allura immediately begins to express her concerns, except Shiro places a hand on her shoulder. 

Keith subtly sinks into his body, fighting off the impulsive piece of his mind that’s eager to pick another fight with them for trying to stop him. He turns to Shiro and allows him to speak before saying anything.

Shiro is facing Allura, but projects his voice loud enough for the room and the device comms to listen. “I agree, it’s extremely risky to place one of us on a planet so close to Central, but the access that Keith would have as a front line support would be critical.” He then gives Keith a once-over. “Be careful out there. I trust the Blade can accommodate this arrangement, Kolivan?”

The leader of the Blade examines Keith closely. They both recall the hasty note Keith left behind when he first learns of Lance’s abduction. The conversation they last had before Keith left the Blade. It wouldn’t be shocking for Kolivan to insist that Keith’s feelings on the mission would be dangerous.

He really hopes Kolivan will say ‘yes’ anyway.

A few more ticks pass, then, “We will send a shuttle out in 10 vargas. If you wish to join the squad in Xeoun, you will need to familiarize yourself with the data gathered so far.” Kolivan thumps his chest with his right arm twice before ending the transmission.

-

Keith doesn’t have much to pack or prepare for embarking on the mission, so in wandering around the Castle, he finds himself in Lance's room once more. With a deep inhale, if he concentrates, he can still smell Lance’s scent and it brings him a degree of comfort.

The doors open, and he’s surprised to see Allura standing at the threshold - she walks in with a proud stance, but strained expression.

It’s no secret that Allura has never been easy on Lance. Something about his demeanor was both foreign and familiar at the same time, which constantly puzzled the princess and always left her on guard around him. His easy going and flirtatious behavior always came across as not taking this job seriously, even though she knew when push came to shove, Lance was a great support system for the team.

In more ways than one.

Allura grips the hem of her skirt and she meets Keith's eyes. What she wants to say is how much she misses Lance. How much she worries about him, and how worried she is about Keith going on this mission. She can't bring herself to say any of that, but she does say, “Bring him back home, Keith.”

She hopes everything she couldn't say comes across.

Keith wordlessly nods.

It does.

He heads into the mission shuttle with the other agents and they begin their journey towards the planet. In the shuttle, they go over the papers in each others hands and discuss the geographical layout. Most of their espionage is provided through doctored documents and paperwork, but things like regional dialects and typical behaviors of locals versus visitors and tourists are important in order to avoid drawing too much attention.

They arrive at the outskirts of the city rumored for the announcement and the other members of BoM strip from their clothing to civilian wear. In missions such as this one, Keith wears looser clothing, gloves, and a thin facial mask to hide his skin. They break out and Keith walks through the vendor square. He keeps an ear out for any gossip that seems like it might be about the announcement today, but it's not difficult to do as it's anything anyone is talking about.

“What do you think it could be?” 

“I heard it's a new habitable planet announcement, Zarkon knows it's been getting a little crowded lately.” 

“My food merchant heard Lord Zarkon’s fleet rescued a Lion from that witch, Allura.” 

“I heard the Prince recovered a priceless artifact from Daibazaal and is receiving a medal for his valor!” 

Keith eventually discovers that the announcement is going to be broadcast through any available Galran channel on the network. He relays an encrypted message to Pidge so that she can tune the castle to the broadcast.

A group of Galran children run past him, giggling and shouting, “Hurry, hurry! The plaza is gonna fill up if we're slow!” Keith quickly realizes that's where the announcement will be and rushes after them.

In the plaza, there is a large platform with a stand on the far right. There is a crowd of hundreds swarmed into the open space. Keith's small body allows him to squirm forward until hand lock on to both sides of his forearms. He exhales and is already inching his blade out from the folds of his sleeve. He flicks his eyes to his left and right.

It's two of the Blade agents he came with. Their full Galra heritage has them easily tower over Keith. They signal that they will go no closer, and as a result, neither will he. While Keith would prefer being front and center, they are 25 yards from the stage and have a clear, close view of it.

A silence spreads as the cameras fly and buzz around, signaling a start to the broadcast. The camera's focus to the podium. 

Pidge is able to secure a communication link into the broadcast just as the sound of feet slowly making their way to the stage is the only thing that can be heard.

Until Haggar reveals herself to the crowd, which immediately bursts into whispers. “The High Priestess? Making an appearance? What for? Is it about Zarkon? Voltron? New technology?” She raises her hand, effectively hushing the audience.

Allura stands behind pidge's chair and grips it fiercely. “Haggar,” she hisses.

“It has been 10,000 deca-phebes since the cowardly King Alfor of Altea attempted to murder our Lord Zarkon. It's been 10,000 deca-phebes since he ordered the destruction of our homeworld of Daibazaal, and it's been 10,000 deca-phebes since Lord Zarkon established the Galra Empire in order to ensure no planet would fall to Altean madness or madness of any kind. It's been 10,000 deca-phebes, far too long for anyone living to remember the betrayal felt from Altea breaking the peace with Daibazaal. But even today, the feeling of homelessness rings through every Galran as does the yearn for a homeworld that will never exist again. As great as our leader is, his greatest regret is not being able to save his people's planet.”

The entire audience is enthralled with Haggar’s skilled weaving of words. 

“But! Today is indeed a glorious day. Under the orders of Zarkon, our brave Prince Lotor was able to bring a war criminal from hiding on their knees and face justice! I present to you, our proud and faithful denizens… The Prince of Altea.”

A loud crack emanated the control room in the Castle. Pidge yelped and fell to the floor. The entire team turned and saw that Allura, with wide eyes still glued to the screen, had shattered the back of the chair with her hands. Her lips trembled and sweat began to form on her face.

“No, no, that's not possible. He was a child, he's _dead_ , he died, it can't be.”

Shiro’s face scrunched up in confusion. He tries to ask Coran for insight, but the older Altean is in just as bad a state - One hand was fiercely holding onto the control podium for balance while the other was clenched over his chest.

“What happened to Lance?” Hunk shouted, bring both Shiro and Pidge’s attention back to the screen. Five sentries had come onto the stage and dragged a prisoner up with them. That was definitely Lance's face but, his cheeks, his ears. 

“No way…” Pidge whispered in a horrified awe. “Genetic mutation? What else do the Galra have up their sleeves?”

“The-they don't. They couldn’t know.” Coran corrects, eyes still glued to the screen. “No one does. Alfor had something similar to it in the works to advance our diplomatic outreach in the war efforts, but the technology was held under close wraps and destroyed with Altea. There’s no way Haggar could have retrieved that technology.”

Pidge's gears were working in overtime, “but- so, Lance… is Altean? That’s crazy, he’s from Earth! And 'Prince’? Did Altea have more than one kingdom?” She treats the silence as a 'no’. She glances at Allura, who appears to be on the brink of tears. “Then that means…”

“No way,” Hunk breathed out.

“It makes sense when you think about it, though.” Pidge furrows her eyebrows and bites her lip. “He was the first of us to bond with a Lion, he’s the only person outside of Allura that was able to perform a wormhole jump, the next Lion he bonds with was Red, who was initially Alfor’s.”

The crowd gives a thunderous applause, cheering and rooting at the Prince brought to his knees before them.

Keith is watching rooted to his spot, eyes wide with disbelief. Prince of Altea? That was _Lance_ up there. Sharp ears, blue scales, and two-toned eyes be damned. Lance was alive, and right there. On stage. So close, he swears he can smell the same scent that lingered his room. The sharp sensation of being punched in the gut ripples in his stomach when he sees how Lance was so scared and out of it. He shouldn’t be there, he should be in the Castle with everyone else, joking around and making milkshakes with Hunk. 

He snarls when one the sentries cuff Lance in his temple, cause Lance to yelp and blood to start dripping down the side of his face. The hit causes a ripple reaction and Lance’s brown hair shift to a silver hue almost identical to Allura’s. The crowd is riled by the spilled blood. They cheer again, and Keith is close to seeing red. Instinctively, he tries to surge forward but feels the agents hold him back with a vice grip. He snaps his head to them, getting ready to claw his way out but their piercing gaze focuses on him, then darts up to the roofs surrounding the square. He squints to follow the line of sight and sees a few agents leaping across building rooftops. 

Another growl involuntarily leaves his throat. “They need to hurry.”

They nod as if they understand.

They don't.

They couldn’t _possibly_ understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once this story finishes (which, again! will be before season 5!!), I'll update the tags accordingly. I just wanted the readers who saw the story first to experience all the suspense I have to offer >:Y
> 
> Also!! The s5 scene with Lance and Allura that was just released is so beautiful and tbh Lance wielding an Altean Broadsword of ALL things makes me crazy in a lot of ways that y'all will understand once I release the next chapter.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the previous chapter: The team, so close to finding Lance, discover his heritage during a Galran broadcast.

It took all of Lance’s willpower to stand upright. The sentries grabbed him from his cell a few vargas ago, threw a cloak on him and kept shoving him into motion. From the halls of the ship, to a cramped cargo transport, to a bustling city. He’s brought past a busy vendor market with dozens of people roaming from stall to stall. His head is shoved down every time he tries to look at his surroundings, but he still tries to lift it up and pay attention to their surrounding.

Wait.

He wiggles a bit to turn around, stretching his neck as much as possible and like a finely tuned machine, the sentries grab his shoulders and twist him forward.

A sigh passes his lips. With another push, he's back to trudging behind a sentry. Maybe he's going delirious, but that citizen kind of looked like Keith.

Logistically speaking, that would be terrible. 

But he still wishes he could see him one more time.

The guards stop suddenly and take his cloak off. A shiver travels through his body. He’s behind the stage of some large platform in the town’s plaza.There are several Galra crew members working on sound and camera shots that are noticeably watching him. It almost feels like being backstage of his junior high theater, which makes him feel a little bit better about the ever-present fluttering nerves.

Haggar’s voice is echoing throughout the curtains he’s positioned in front of. Lance can hear her hype the crowd up and introduce him as the ‘Prince of Altea’ as if he hasn’t spent the past deca-phoeb as a Paladin. The chains around his arms are yanked forward by the sentry in front of him, and he’s able to see just how grand a spectacle they’re trying to make of him. There’s easily maybe 2,500 in the public space. All the purple faces in the crowd were clapping and stomping their feet at the sight of him.

It was terrifying.

He’s pulled past Haggar, who curled her lip at him in disgust, and is brought downstage - front and center for the masses.

His legs were trembling fiercely, he’s too stunned by the scene to move. Camera drones were zooming past him and recalculating their lens on him.

One of the sentries cuffs the side of his head when he doesn’t respond to them ordering him on his knees. Lance cries out and sharp pain explodes from the hit. He can feel both blood trickling down his face and the feeling of his hair changing back to silver.

His heart, already working so fast (the poor thing) is drumming so fast all he can hear is the thumping rhythm of babump-babump-babump, but he needs to get back on track.

Voltron must be watching, he's sure of it.

Haggar announces his execution, claiming this to be a sure step closer to eradicating the threat of the Altean Witch's clutch over Voltron.

Keith feels his blood go cold.

“I'm gonna puke,” Hunk groans out. He fumbles for a bag and begins to breathe in it.

“We have to go down there, we have to stop this,” Pidge demands. She looks at Shiro desperately, like he held a secret plan that he was waiting for the right moment to reveal it.

“We can't,” Shiro began, gritting his teeth. “It's a Central Command planet, if we tried, we'd just be decimated by the hundreds of fleets nearby. We have to trust in the Blade.” He stood beside Allura, hands on her shoulder for support.

In the distance, roaring and whining travel throughout the halls of the Castle.

They seem to snap Allura’s trance on the screen. She turns to Shiro, panicked and shouts, “I can't let him die again. We have to go!” He tries to calm her down and restrain her, but she easily flips him on his back and runs out of the room and into the Lion's hanger.

She sees that though Red is screaming his head off, he has not moved from his standing position. Blue, on the other hand, has fallen to the ground, limp and uncaring of how she's splayed on the ground. Low, pitiful, whimpering is rumbling from her.

Allura climbs into Blue's mouth and runs to the pilot seat. Full of reckless determination, she surges the controls forward, ready for whatever the Galra can try to throw her way.

Nothing happens.

Allura is baffled. She stares at the controls waiting for them to come to life. 

They don't.

Allura surges the controls forward again, and again. She curls in on herself and screams.

“Why aren't you helping?” She cries out. “He's your paladin! Your _true_ paladin, we need to save him. _I_ need to save him!”

Blue lets out another sad moan, rumbling her seat. Allura hears Red roaring still outside. It doesn't make any sense. They both feel so frustrated, so resigned. They _want_ to help, so why aren't they? Red did for Keith, why aren't they doing the same for him?

A video link pops up on her screen, the work of Pidge no doubt. It's the feed. Lance is looking around feverishly, a sentry guard pushes him forward and he growls as he stumbles forward. He's brought to the middle of the platform and forced to his knees with a hit to his temple. His hair changes to the beautiful shade of silver Allura thought she’d only be able to see again in her dreams. He looks out to the crowd and up at the cameras. Realization flickers across his disoriented face and he becomes sickly pale.

Allura has never felt so utterly useless. Princess to a people no more, leader to the last shred of hope in the universe who couldn't stop her paladin from being abducted from the palm of her hands, and a big sister who could do nothing but watch as her baby brother was captured and paraded by the same monsters that destroyed their planet.

She hears movement from behind her and sees Shiro at the cockpit door. He seems unsure of what to say, but in the end, says nothing but walks up to her seat and leans down to wraps Allura in his arms.

Keith's eyes darted across the rooftops and no longer sees any movement. His heart is racing seeing Lance petrified on the platform.

Haggar is giving some spiel about Lotor's 'brave task’. Lotor is standing beside her, his eyes scanning the area.

Their eyes meet. 

Lotor looks like he understands something Keith doesn't, because he smirks once he sees him and continues to scan the area.

Keith wants to kill Lotor for taking Lance, for hurting Lance. His hands clench into fists. The agents by his side (he can't help but think of them as babysitting) pulse their grip on him to remind him to follow orders. He grits his teeth as he sees Lance’s eyes furiously darting around the plaza. He's looking for them, no doubt, for the Blade - for Keith.

Haggar brings out a tall Galran wield a broadsword. 

When Lance sees it, an odd sense of understanding finally breaks through.

Voltron isn’t coming, the Blade isn’t coming, there’s no secret group of town rebels that are going to break him free.

This is it.

When he thinks about all the torture, pain and fear he’s gone through, he thinks about his team. Coran, and Allura. Shiro, Hunk, and Pidge. Keith. In a way, he’s glad things worked out the way they did, because he’s so relieved none of them went through this (in Shiro’s case, went through this a _third_ time.)

She asks Lance if he has any last words. The mic source is switched. A smaller drone appeared before Lance waiting for his words. The crowd begins to boo, but it’s quickly shut down from a single hand raise from Lotor.

He gulps and closes his eyes with a deep inhale, and opens them with a slow exhale.

“I, um.” He laughs, shallow and nervously. “Pidge,” he calls out. 

Pidge covers her mouth, tears threatening to fall. 

“You're the smartest, person I know, I'm glad to have you as a lil' sis, I know you'll find Matt and your dad soon.” The tears start to fall and she crumples to the ground.

Hunk kneels down to comfort her and snaps head up when he hears his name. “My man, who needs a soulmate when you've got a soulbrother? Don't stop cooking your awesome food, don't stop giving out your awesome hugs, and if you see my family before I do, tell them I love them, I love you man!” Hunk’s curled his arms around Pidge and they're both sobbing profusely.

“Coran, and Shiro, thanks for managing our ragtag team. I know I haven't always been the greatest paladin,” Coran gasps at the screen.

“No, my dear boy, you are the greatest paladin I have had the pleasure of meeting.”

“But I'm glad I was able to help where I could. You guys got this. Allura, I wish we could’ve talked about this.” He gestures to his body. “I can’t even imagine what’s going through your mind, but it’s not your fault. Keep fighting the good fight.”

Her face is twisted with grief and anger, although her gritted teeth stop her from wailing, tears are streaming from her squinting eyes. 

Lance scans the crowd once more and in the sea of Galra, finally finds Keith and the two agents restraining him. He can’t stop the small smile that blossoms on his face. Keith stills, realizing Lance can see him. His gut wrenches, wondering what could be going through Lance's head seeing Keith there not doing anything, especially given the last time they spoke.

Lance looks so sad, but is smiling nonetheless. “They can kill me, but I won't die. I can't die as long as hope is alive.” He takes a deep breath, eye locked onto Keith’s. “Keith,” He looks like he wants to say so much. Haggar signals the executioner, tired of the paladin’s rant. Keith feels his mouth open, and frustrated, angry, scared tears fall. What was the Blade doing? Why haven't they leaped to the stage and saved him? Why wouldn't they let Keith leap to the stage to save him?

“Keith, I love you.”

A choked out moan leaves his mouth. Keith's never felt anything like this before. He feels both the happiest and most heartbroken he can ever remember being. His heart feels like it's soaring, flying straight to the sun. His insides feel so shriveled and there is a fire burning inside him.

The executioner approached the kneeling Lance.

Keith's getting on that stage if it kills him.

He jumps up in place and swoops each leg around one of the legs of the agents. He brings all 3 of them down and gets up just as quick. He rips the thin mask covering his mouth off and pushes forward, shoving anyone from the crowd in his way. Lance is still looking at him, hasn't taken his eyes off of him and Keith refuses to break that contact.

The executioner raises their broadsword.

“Lance! Lance!” Keith screams over and over again. Just a little more time, he's almost there. Lance slowly closes his eyes.

The executioner swings down, cutting through Lance's neck with ease. The crowd goes into a wild roar, yelling and cheering louder than before.

Keith feels like a knife has plunged itself into his chest. He screams louder than he's ever screamed before.

Sobs wrack Allura's body, and Shiro holds on to her as if she were a lifeline, turning to shield her from the screen.

Pidge burrows herself into Hunk's arms. Coran Is still locked onto the screen. The sound of metal cutting through Lance's flesh is sickeningly wet and when his body to slump, Coran sinks down to his knees, arms still fiercely gripping the rails. His head lobs forward and looks at the ground. His chest feels so hollow. He covers his mouth and wails so freely that his nose begins to leak. Slav, who has kept himself apart from as much activity as he could, is to the wall and refuses to blink, keeping his eyes glued to the screen, scanning, searching for something.

As Lance's body falls on the platform floor, explosions rip throughout the open space. Cheers turn to terrified shouting as the crowd begins to run in different directions. Keith is flung back from the explosion and everything hurts. It hurts so much, he begins feels numb. Shock, some part of his mind suggests. He props himself on his elbows and sees the agents he knocked down earlier running to the platform site.

 _Lance_ , Keith thinks, getting to his feet. He stumbles toward the platform, still covered in dust and smoke. Four Marmorans jump out of the smoke, with sentries following close behind, one Marmoran is tackled by a guard and turns to fight him off. The largest Marmoran grabs Keith by his waist and flings him over their shoulder.

Keith's vision swims from the frenzy. “No,” he croaks out. “Stop, we have to go back.” He tries in vain to crawl off of the agent's shoulder. They are running in full sprint to reach their extraction zone. Keith watches with blurry, tear stained eyes as the platform and the chaos surrounding it becomes farther and farther to the point of bleeding into the horizon. His face scrunches as new tears fall and he continues to shout Lance's name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops my fingers slipped.
> 
> Less than a day away, and we still have _one_ more chapter left.
> 
> I'm not going to be able to answer some of the questions you inevitably will have once this story is done, BUT!! I DO intend to answer them in a new story that I plan to work on after Season 5 comes out! :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the previous chapter: Brought before his executioner, Lance offers his final farewells to the public.

Darkness is the first sensation Keith recognizes. There’s an eerie peace washing over his conscious that’s making him move sluggishly in the void. Every sense seems muddled as he tries to understand the nothingness.

The non-ground underneath him gives way and he free-falls into a blinding light. Strong arms wrap around his body before he can hit the floor, and its hard not to groan out as gravity reintroduces itself.

“Hey, hey, Keith, can you hear me?” A soft voice breaks through all the light and rapidly swirling colors. 

“Lance?” He calls out, eyes slowly readjusting to the world. Keith hears some reactions in the room, but no confirmation. He grasps onto the arms holding him and stands to forces his body to find its balance.

“N-no, Keith, it’s me - Shiro.” The voice clarifies. Colors finally start to settle down and he sees the face in front of him is definitely Shiro. He can see the exhaustion and stress in every line and bag on Shiro’s face. Guilt ebbs inside. How long had he been out? What happened that he was back in the Castle instead of the Blade’s infirmary?

Still in Shiro’s arms, he squints as he turns to look at everyone in the room. They all look terrible. Pidge looks like she hasn’t slept in days, Hunk _definitely_ looks thinner, Coran looks like he’s running on his last leg to operate Keith’s pod. Allura stands next to Coran with her hand are folded protectively over her shoulders. Her clothes are rumpled and her hair unkempt, she tries to glance at Keith but keeps falling short.

Now that he thinks about it, no one else is looking at him besides Shiro.

“What happened?” Keith groans at the persistent temple throbbing, “Where…Where’s Lan-”

It all comes back in a flurry of events. Lance being savagely taken from his room. Keith coming back to the Castle to help find him. Butting heads with Shiro. Going to the Central planet to follow their strongest lead. Seeing Lance get dragged out to the Town Square. Hearing him say his goodbyes. Say ‘I love you’. Seeing his body fall. His head roll. The explosion.

Everything seems so heavy again. Keith feels his legs give, and Shiro follows his sinking to the ground. His eyes are wide and unfocused. The only thing he can feel is his heart slamming into his chest. He starts swallowing huge gasps of air, but it’s almost as if it's having the exact opposite. 

He can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, _he can’t breathe_.

“Keith, Keith, _please_. Take deep breaths, I’m right here. I'm right here.” Shiro whispers into his ear, he’s rubbing small circles into Keith back, but it feels so wrong. 

How is he still here and Lance isn’t? This wasn’t supposed to happen, none of this was supposed to happen.

He’s screaming, he can hear himself screaming. There’s so much guilt, and anger, and sadness eating him alive. These feelings won’t go away no matter how hard he screams and it’s driving him crazy.

He needs to get away.

Keith scratches and puts all of his power in trying to push Shiro off, but Shiro persists and forces a hug on him.

“Lance!” He cried out, “Shiro, Lance!” He succumbs to Shiro’s hold and wraps his arms around him. “God, I saw him, I saw him- he saw me! I tried to get to him, I tried!” Keith sobbed. He’s a blubbering, incoherent mess and much too absorbed in his grief to feel any shame as his teammate watching him crumble.

“I know,” Shiro says, and Keith can feel tears on his shoulder. “I know you did, kiddo.”

Suddenly, warmth spreads over Keith’s back, he turns his face and sees Hunk hugging him from behind, his face buried in the folds of his arms. Other than his shoulders shaking, Hunk doesn’t make a sound. Pidge and Coran quickly join the pile, and while Pidge is letting out the occasional hiccup, Coran is outright bawling. Keith hears the hesitant clacking of Allura’s shoes approaching them and he looks up.

She looks as broken as he feels. Her shoulder’s shake with her sobs and she seems so consumed by her grief that the tears falling from her face are untouched. Allura lets gravity drop her against the pile and Coran shifts his arms to burrow her deeper in.

Keith can’t help but think of how similar this felt to the group hug they shared when he left to the Blade.

Except Lance isn't with him, and Keith honestly, truly, has no idea how to they are going to do without him.

—

After a few moments, everyone stands up and helps walk Keith to the dining hall. They spend a bit trying to convince him to eat at least a few spoons of food goo before he concedes.

“Where,” he clears his hoarse throat, “are we?” he asks.

“Near the blue star the Blade resides by.” Coran answers. “We left for it the moment the Blade delivered you.”

Hunk spoke from across the table, “You had a metal shard the size of a fist in your back. We didn’t, um, we didn’t know how you were gonna come out of that pod.”

“Oh.” Keith’s gaze drops to his hand. He stretches them out and clenches them into a fist. “How long was I out for?”

 _How long has it been since Lance died?_ Was the underlying tone.

“Two quintants.” Pidge offers, sitting next to Hunk. They are clustered towards the middle of the table and are very careful to leave Lance’s seat untouched.

Shiro offered his arm as a mean for Keith to get up from his seat, which he gratefully took. “We’re going to have a briefing in the Bridge with the Blade soon, we should get going.”

Keith nodded and followed the team out. 

When they leave the room, Keith is very aware of the fact that Allura has yet to say a word to him.

Pidge pulls up the transmission feed and they find Kolivan is already present.

“Paladins.”

Allura steps towards the screen and looks up at the leader of the Blade with a barely controlled anger. “Kolivan.” She says curtly.

“I apologize for the mission failure - I understand how close you all are to each other an-”

“You _‘apologize’_?” Allura cuts him off. “Apologize? Our teammate, my _brother_ , is _dead_ , because of your failure.” Shiro moves to try to calm her down, but she catches his movement from her peripherals and whips her arm out to stop him with an open palm. She stares Kolivan down, who has thinned his lips to a line. “I don’t want your apology, I _want_ an explanation.”

Kolivan nods, seeming unperturbed by her words. “Our mission directives were to gather information, secure a location, and once we confirmed the captive’s identity, create a diversion to seize the target and meet at the extraction point for retrieval.”

“The two Blades that stopped me from getting closer,” Keith recalls, and quickly fills the blanks. “It was to avoid the blast radius. The other agents must have been placing the bombs on the corners the stage and around the plaza.”

Allura briefly looks to Keith, then back to Kolivan. “The bomb was from the Blade? Why weren’t we informed of this part of the plan, and why did it go off so late?”

“If we shared the plan with you, the Red Paladin would have never agreed to it. He would have put himself and the mission in danger.”

“Of course, I would have!” Keith shouts. “If I was closer, if I could have made it to the stage-”

“You would have got yourself killed, kit. You wouldn't have been able to control yourself if you were any closer and you would have put yourself in danger.”

“Getting killed is what the Blade is all about!” He snarls. “I would have done anything to save him, why would you waste two agents on babysitting me?”

“Knowledge over death is what we strive for, yes. But you are _not_ a Blade, you explicitly chose not to be once you left during your training. Your life is in infinitely more valuable as a Paladin than a Blade.”

Keith opens his mouth to rebuttal, when Allura repeats herself. “But _why_ did the bomb go off _after-_ ” She looks away with a pained expression, and takes a deep breath before continuing, “ _after_ Lance died?”

The Galra on their screen opened his mouth, then closed it. He sighs, rubbing his nose, and admits, “It wasn’t our bomb.”

“… _What?_ ”

“Our planted bombs were made of Ruibidite - which is three times as explosive as the bomb that went off. We had multiple placed around the stage and should have been triggered during Lance’s speech.”

“Sleeper cells in the area report that the bombs we planted were found and defused. It is more than likely that whoever planted the bomb that went off, found and defused our bombs as well.”

Allura rubbed her fingers together to calm her anger. “I’ll assume you have yet to discover their identity, do you at least have his body in your base? We deserve our right to lay him to rest.”

“Even though our agents moved to the stage moments after the explosion, they were unable to recover his body. 

“You don’t even know where his body is?” She cries out with a hand over her mouth. 

It becomes a fist and Allura stomps over to Pidge, slamming her finger on the button to end the call. “Useless,” she seethes. “Utterly useless.”

“Princess…” Shiro calls out while reaching for her. He lightly touches her forearm, but she yanks it from his reach and storms out of the room.

“I’ll, I’ll try to talk to her.” Keith offers and walks out after her.

— 

It’s hard to chase someone down so soon after coming out of a pod. So, instead, he goes to the one place he imagines she’d go. The one place he would want to go.

Lance’s room.

Sure enough, when he walks in, he sees Allura standing in the room, looking at the Altean Mice who are chittering at her in a worried tone. She whips her body around, ready to yell at whoever walked through the door. Once she sees its Keith, she falters and sits on the bed instead.

He walks over to her and sits in the same spot he was when he was comforting Hunk. When they promised they would make _pernil_ for Lance.

His chest aches with another round of pain.

They sit in silence, Keith providing Allura as much time as she needs to gather herself.

“I don’t hate you.” She says softly.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

Allura shakes her head. “I _want_ to blame you, I want to blame Kolivan, blame the Lions, myself. But the only ones that really deserve that fury are light spans away.” She reaches into the folds of her skirt and takes out a black cloth. Keith watches her caress it with the back of her hand. “I’m just at a complete loss. I never thought, never dreamed, I’d see another Altean again. Lo and behold, not only is it my brother, but I've spent over a deca-pheob with him by my side.” She clicks her tongue and opens the cloth up. In it, are two locks of silver hair, both locks have a neat royal blue ribbon tied to keep the strands of hair in place. Keith’s heart drops as he sees specks of blood on the bottom portion of the strand. Keith stares with wide eyes.

“Is that…” 

She nods. “Lance’s hair. The Galra that brought you back, Po’luz, he was one of the Blades that made it to the platform.” She rubs one of the bands gently and the mice gather around to peer at the hair. “He hands this to me and said ‘I wish we could have done more.’” Allura picks up one of the bundles of hair and hands it to Keith. He starts to protest, but she shakes her head again. “I- I don’t know what happened between you and Lance, but I feel it is only right for you to have a piece of him to carry with you as I intend to.”

Keith gulps and takes the tress. He stares at the hair, not realizing how much it means to him until the moment he feels how soft it is. Until the moment he realizes that it could have been his hand running through such softness while it was on Lance - not like this. Emotions are flooding his senses again, and tears gather once more. “I never told him.” He croaks out, “I never got to say ‘I love you’ back”.

A soft hand covers his own, and he snaps his head up. Allura is leaning in and has such a sorrowful smile on her face.

“Lance knew, you know he did.” 

He bits his lip and nods, “Thank you, Allura.”

They sit in Lance’s room for a bit longer, and as Allura begins to leave for the night, Keith stops her with a question.

“His name.”

“Hmm?” Allura quirks her head to him and raises an eyebrow.

“What was Lance’s name?”

The princess looks at the hair still in her hand and closes it gently.

“His name was Loras.” 

“Loras…” he repeats. Keith mulls the name over. “I think I prefer Lance.”

Allura can’t help the chuckle she gets from his comment. “You know? I think he did too.”

After she leaves, Keith adjusts himself to Lance’s bed. It’s probably not good for him to do this, but he doubts anyone will yell at him for it. Lying in Lance’s bed, Keith thinks back to what Allura said about those who deserved her fury.

Zarkon, Haggar, Lotor.

He grips the hair in his hand.

Even with Lance gone, they still had a universe to save.

Zarkon, Haggar, Lotor.

He closes his eyes before he has a chance to cry again.

Zarkon, Haggar, Lotor.

Voltron is going to win, and he is going to make sure that all three of them die by his hands.

_“Zarkon, Haggar, Lotor.”_

He wasn’t able to keep his promise with Hunk, but he knows he can keep this promise to himself.

When he sleeps, he dreams of a boy who held a galaxy of stars in his eyes. Love was shining through, even with death creeping at his throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so, so, so grateful to everyone that left a kudo, commented, and bookmarked my first story here! Meeting the goal of finishing this is such an awesome feeling :D
> 
> As I mentioned, I do (eventually) plan on releasing another story related to this fic universe, but that's probably not going to be anytime soon.
> 
> At the very least, you got to know his name - I was planning on holding onto that for the next story lol
> 
> Thank you all so much for joining and supporting me on this crazy wild ride, and here's to getting that klance content we're all hoping for in S5!
> 
> EDIT: I revamped the tags and chose to mark it as a Bittersweet Ending over a Sad Ending because, personally - while writing Lance's inevitable death killed me, his ability to confess his love for Keith during his last moments actually buried me. And, like I mentioned in the new tags, sappy sequels cleanse my pores

**Author's Note:**

> A quick reminder of time slices!
> 
> Tick: 1.39 seconds  
> Dobosh: A minute  
> Varga: A little over an hour  
> Quintant: Over a day (20 vargas)  
> Movement: Comparable to a week  
> Phoeb: Comparable to a month  
> Deca-Phoeb: A year and some change ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> My tumblr is livin-la-vida-langst.tumblr.com if anyone wants to check it out!
> 
> Thanks for reading, take care y'all! :)


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